Screaming
by nsane1
Summary: The first nightmares come without warning. NineRose


_**Screaming**_

Rating: K  
Spoilers: None  
Summary: The first nightmares come without warning. NineRose  
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, only this story and the ideas contained within.  
Author's Note: I finally broke out of drabble mode! Written to cheer up my best friend, who's currently sick.

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The first nightmares come without warning, so quickly that she hardly knows she's having one until she wakes up screaming. The Doctor is by her side in an instant, a deeply concerned look on his face, but she smiles and brushes it off and tells him not to worry. After all, she was bound to start having nightmares sometime. Maybe not screaming nightmares—that part bothers her, though she doesn't let on—but nightmares all the same. She doesn't go back to sleep that night, nor does she sleep very well the next few nights, and she's tired enough for the Doctor to notice and go to a nice, tame planet. They still end up running back to the TARDIS, the Doctor yelling something about not knowing watermelons were the food of the devil. As tired as she is, the running pushes her right over the edge, and she passes out in the console room despite all her efforts to make it to her room.

She wakes up screaming.

_I don't remember what it was about_, she tells the Doctor truthfully as he hovers near her, apparently not sure what to do when a Companion has persistent screaming nightmares. He finally seems to make a decision, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the medical room, tightening his grip when she tries to pull away once she realizes where they're going. _I'm fine_, she tries to insist, over and over again, but he makes her sit on the bed and gives her a sedative and promises to stay with her as she slowly fades into blackness.

She wakes up screaming anyway.

He's even more concerned as he pokes her and prods her with strange instruments, telling her that the sedatives should have given her a dreamless sleep, and if they didn't, something's wrong. She hates the fuss he's making over her, and tries to insist that they're just nightmares and everyone has them and he should leave her alone and go get some sleep himself. He doesn't stop examining her, but he does deign to pause his diagnostic mumblings long enough to tell her he doesn't need to sleep if he doesn't want to._ Lucky you_, she says, slumping back on the bed and submitting to his examination without another word.

He pokes her when she starts falling asleep.

_I know what it is_, he finally says, his voice grave enough to jar her out of the sleep-deprived trance she fell into after a half hour. _Do you remember Flax 7_? She resists the urge to laugh. Of course she remembers Flax 7, the dark, dingy planet they'd spent a ghastly week on, trying to figure out what was terrorizing the local population. They'd decided—well, really the Doctor had decided, since she'd mostly comforted the children—that it was a funny sort of virus that had once activated only when sleeping, but had mutated into a constant, overpowering force that made the people afraid to be awake and afraid to be asleep. He'd cured them, of course, after sending Rose into the TARDIS to avoid being contaminated, and had checked her over anyway, pronouncing her completely virus-free.

Apparently, she wasn't.

_It hid_, he says apologetically, like it was somehow his fault. She has no doubt he thinks it is. _It mutated again. It's a clever virus, really, it—_ She stops him. She really doesn't want to know how clever the virus is; she wants it out of her brain so she can get some real sleep and he can stop worrying. _You're going to need to go to sleep so the virus is activated._

Now that she's supposed to go to sleep, she finds it difficult, and she tosses and turns so much that the Doctor finally takes pity on her and starts to soothingly stroke her hair. It feels incredibly nice and she finds herself slipping into sleep, but she finds the time to tell him he doesn't have to do that before she gets all the way there.

She later swears he kept stroking her hair after she falls asleep.

It might just be, of course, that he's stroking her hair as she comes back to consciousness, feeling no different except for a nagging headache and relief in the knowledge that he must have cured her, since she didn't wake up screaming. She would have hid the headache, only he looks so worried she can't help herself, and he looks almost relieved to be able to do something as he gives her a nice painkiller that gets rid of the headache straight off.

_I'm sorry, Rose_, he says in a grave, barely kept together voice which makes her reach out and take his hand. _If I'd figured it out sooner on the planet, if I'd looked more carefully after—_

She can't stand the look in his eyes, though that's only part of the reason she wraps her arms around him and rests her head on his chest. _I don't blame you_, she whispers, closing her eyes, and she can feel some of his tension melting away. _I don't want you to blame you, either. I'm fine, now._ He starts to say something about what could have happened, but she tells him to shut up since it didn't, and since she'd really like some sleep. He asks if she'd like to sleep in her bed, and she says, _Only if you stay with me_. He looks a little surprised at that but comes anyway, and she falls asleep in his arms.

She never sleeps alone again, and that's the last of her nightmares for a good long while.


End file.
